


Incubate

by orphan_account



Series: Incubate [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Not for the faint of heart, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Rape, Tentacles, bad shit goes down, no i'm serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:02:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gavin is minding his own business when he stumbles upon a cavern full of slimes. What are they doing in such a large group and what are they going to do with him now that he's fallen unceremoniously into their lair?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incubate

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry. It just popped into my head. I had to get it out. I blame Welcome to Night Vale.

Gavin wasn’t sure what he was expecting to happen but he knew it wasn’t this. He vaguely remembered through the haze in his mind talking to Michael through his earpiece when he knocked a stone block away to reveal a large cavern behind it with a pool of lava in the corner. He had blinked and pushed the button to his earpiece to get everyone’s attention, “Bloody hell, guys, you’re not gonna believe what I just found!”

~~\-----------------------~~

The cavern was positively _filled_ with green slimes. They danced and jiggled around at the bottom of the cave and otherwise didn’t seem to notice him. He had mined into the cavern a good 12 blocks from the absolute bottom and was staring into the writhing sea of green.

“What is it, Gav?” Geoff’s voice crackled into his ear.

 “Slimes! Thousands of them. All sitting in this one cave!”

“Really? That doesn’t sound right…”

“Oh, Geoffrey, if I could send you a picture, I would.” He started to look for a way down. Slimes were relatively harmless in his mind and he figured that there was bound to be some diamond the guys could use somewhere in this place.

“Don’t go in there, Gav. Close it up and come home alright?” Geoff’s tone was parental and concerned, “I don’t like what you’re telling me about it. There shouldn’t be so many in one place and I don’t need you getting yourself killed.”

“Oh come on. They’re just slimes. There’s no way they would- _ah_!” He lost his footing and nearly slipped into the cavern had he not caught himself on the ledge. His earpiece clattered to the ground where he had previously stood.

“Gavin? Gavin!” Geoff’s voice crackled from the receiver with increasing worry and the Brit tried to pull himself up and back into his safe hole to reach the headset and reassure his friend and leader.

Just as he was ready to pull himself back to safety, something tugged on his leg and he fell back to where he started, clutching to the side of the hole he made desperately. Looking down caused a shot of ice to race down his back. Something had tangled itself around his ankle. More specifically, the green slimes had coalesced together and formed a mass of tentacles which were writhing in a sea-like mass beneath him. One of those tentacles had wrapped itself tightly around his boot-clad ankle and pulled him to his current position against the wall.

He swallowed thickly and tried to kick the tentacle off but another one joined it, grabbing higher up his leg and wriggling against the green fabric of his pants. He brought the heel of his other boot up to try and pry the writhing slime from him and felt his breath hitch a bit as another tentacle reached up and snapped around the knee of that leg.

“C-come on now… Let go…” He tried reasoning with it, “I just want to leave…” Another tug against his legs in response had his nails digging into the stone he was hanging from, “Please! Let go!” He jerked harder before giving up entirely and trying to pull himself back into his hole or at least reach his earpiece to call for help. He had been on the internet long enough to know what happened when the lone wanderer encountered a mob of tentacles. He didn’t want to become a kink meme. _Please, god, no._

As luck would have it, his upper body strength was not nearly strong as he would have liked to hold both his weight and the added pounds of a thousand slimes tugging on his legs. As soon as he made the mistake of trying to reach for the earpiece, his fingers gave out and he fell screaming into the mass below.

It felt as you might imagine falling into wriggling tentacles would; slimy and uneasy like a slippery water bed. He landed on his back and immediately twisted, trying to use the leverage from his hands and knees to find a way out of the slimes hold, but everywhere he looked was covered in green and he felt his stomach lurch into his throat.

_No, no, no, no, no please. Not me. Not me._

The tentacles in front of him shifted until they towered over him and he had to stop and look up. His throat was suddenly very dry and no amount of swallowing was going to fix it. The slimes were shifting position then, sliding up the walls to hang on the ceiling and they took him with them, several of the tentacles wrapping around his waist, legs, and arms and one finding purchase around his neck, the tip of it tickling his cheek.

His screech of protest at being dangled so many blocks in the air was cut off by a yelp as a few tentacles wrapped around his feet and yanked hard, pulling off his boots effectively. He watched them clatter to the ground in horror. _God, if this is a dream, please wake me up._

Slick and gelatinous, a tentacle slid against the skin of his foot and he jerked away from it, shuddering. It didn’t seem to care though and wrapped tighter around his foot, sliding underneath the fabric of his pants to wrap around the skin of his calf. It was then that he felt the tentacles everywhere pulling at his clothes, sliding under every piece it could in an effort to find skin.

“Stop that!” He tried to thrash but the effort was in vain, “Let me go!”

The slimes were either ignorant of the language or ignorant of caring as they adjusted his position, leaving him dangling but more or less in a submissive position with his back facing the ground. A few tentacles found the hem of his shirt and slid under it while a couple others pulled at the waistband of his pants insistently. One slipped beneath the waistband and the band of his boxers and rubbed against his dick causing his face to heat up and his body to shudder, “Kn-knock it off!” He knew his shrieks were falling on deaf ears (if they were falling on ears at all) but he couldn’t stop them from escaping.

He swallowed again and felt his shirt bunch up around his throat, two smaller tentacles deciding to wrap and wriggle around his nipples. He couldn’t stop the rush of air that escaped him, or the feeling that he was hardening where the other tentacle was playing. He cinched his eyes shut. _I don’t want this. I don’t want this._ He felt his pants and boxers push over his hips and slide from his legs easily leaving him nude from the waist down and his face was on fire. _Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it…_

His fists were tightening in his grip as he panted with the effort of trying to stop his body’s natural response to stimulation. This wasn’t fair! He didn’t want to feel anything, dammit! An assortment of the appendages were wrapping around his dick, stroking it to full hardness despite his whimpered protests.

A rogue tentacle, cool with a slick and viscous fluid brushed against his lower back, its destination obvious, and he gasped, eyes flying open and back arching away from the appendage even though he knew it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. The tentacles at his legs spread him open and vulnerable as another shoved its way into his newly open mouth and he gagged, choking on it before breathing through his nose and letting a defeated whimper escape.

The rogue tentacle had found its destination and was currently nudging its way slowly into his ass. Gavin shut his eyes tight and tried to will the slimes away but it was difficult over the unfamiliar intrusion and burning feeling he felt radiating through his system. Tears leaked from his eyes at the humiliation and pain and horror and he just wanted to go home. He just wanted to be safe.

He felt a sob rip through his chest at the impossibility of safety in this moment; the terror of being used by beings he thought were lesser than him only to realize they were much more of a threat when they banded together. He couldn’t even find it in him to black out and find a happy place within all this. There was nowhere to go because the need had never been there before. He hadn’t built a happy place because he had never had a reason to so he was stuck in this reality; a plaything to a colony of slimes.

The tentacle in his ass found his prostate and prodded at it, causing him to jerk in response and yelp, his body shuddering intensely as his breathing grew more and more shallow and the tentacle in his mouth demanded his attention, sliding in and out from between his lips slowly. The stimulation was slowly driving him insane, his hips starting to jerk in response as pressure built in his abdomen and set fire to his nerve endings. Why was this happening? Why him?

Building and building and building until he was sure he was going to burst, the ball in his abdomen coiled so tightly that he was starting to scream and the only thing he could think about was completion, fruition. He thrashed trying to fight it off and failing miserably. He didn’t want this. _I don’t want this._ But it seemed whoever was in charge of his fate didn’t care about what he wanted. He was near hyperventilating around the tentacle in his mouth, the appendage in his ass starting to ram against his prostate now and the tentacles stroking his dick started to pick up intensity, like they were waiting for him to fly over the edge and let go, but god, he didn’t want to. _Anything but that. Anywhere but here. Anytime but now. Please._

If he thought even for a second that begging would work, it was crushed under the weight of reality; under the atomic bomb that flashed over his skin and stole his breath and made his body arch wantonly and involuntarily. A choked mewl ripped from his chest and as he came. He shuddered through the aftershocks an d the tentacle in his mouth removed itself slowly and let him catch his breath. Part of him was thankful that it recognized the need. Another part of him was panicking. He was now exhausted in every sense of the word and fighting back against these slimes with any kind of strength was out of the question. No doubt that was their plan all along. He didn’t even have it in him to thrash about anymore, only shuddering when the tentacle in his ass slid out and left him empty. His eyes were half open; tired from the exertion of all his energy and he only wished that he hadn’t been more involved with the internet, that he could be blissfully unaware that this was not the end; that he could hope that it the slimes would leave him alone now, but he couldn’t hope at all because he did know. This was far from over and a sob of recognition escaped him.

_I just want to go home…_

A tentacle much larger than the previous one nudged against his backside and he shuddered, tensing his body and fisting his hands so tight that his nails began to leave imprints in his palms. If there was one moment to this whole experience that he was going to find impossible to repress it would be the next instance where all he felt was a burning stretch and all he heard was his own scream echoing through the cavern.

~~\------------------------~~

“Michael, check in.” Geoff’s voice crackled over the boy’s earpiece three hours later.

“I’m fine.” Michael replied, “Still haven’t found much. Are you sure Gavin said he was by Felix Baumgartner?”

“That’s what he told me. I don’t know why he would lie about it.”

“Right.” The younger man pursed his lips and rounded a corner to a hill. There was a light coming from one particular spot so he went over to investigate. A hole big enough to fit a person and stair-stepping down, lit with torches was what he found, “Hey, Geoff, I think I found it. I don’t remember this tunnel being here before.”

“There wasn’t a tunnel near there. Go get him, Michael. Bring him home.”

“Aye, boss.” Quickly, the Jerseyite took the steps by twos, navigating the tunnel easily since his friend really didn’t do anything but mine down. Once he reached bedrock the stairs bottomed out and went straight for a few blocks before starting up again. There were pieces of the walls mined away where Gavin had probably found some iron or coal but otherwise, the stairs went straight up… until they didn’t.

A bright light ahead of him signaled the end of the tunnel and the cavern that Gavin had been telling Geoff about, but when he reached the edge, his eyes widened in horror, “Oh my fucking god…” The words came out softer than was probably normal for the situation but he couldn’t actually believe what he was seeing.

Suspended at the top of the cavern was Gavin, his boy, almost completely nude, being fucked by a writhing mass of green slime tentacles. It was truly a sight to behold. The Brit’s eyes were covered by a tentacle that had wrapped around his head, another was sliding in and out of his mouth, several more were writhing against his dick, and, from where Michael was standing, at least four were shoved into his ass; three small ones and one larger one. Two of the smaller ones were pulsing in and out of him at alternating speeds, the other small one was still, presumably fondling his prostate, and the larger one just seemed to be in a continuous inward movement and he could see the disfiguration of the Brit’s stomach where the larger tentacle was travelling through his intestines. Others were wrapped around his legs, arms, and waist to keep him open and suspended in the air as they fucked him. If they released him, he’d fall flat on his face, most likely to his death below.

Michael almost fell to his knees but caught himself against the wall. He felt sick to his stomach but he couldn’t turn away. That was his best friend up there in an unimaginable amount of agony and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t reach the slimes even if he _had_ brought some way of getting to them. They were literally imbedded inside of Gavin, one false move to anger them could be the end of the line for the Brit and he wasn’t going to risk it.

“Michael? Michael, what’s going on? Check in.” Geoff’s concerned voice again, “Did you find him?”

The slimes seemed to hear the communication and started to move. For a moment, Michael was afraid that they were coming to make him a victim too, but they merely moved closer to the hole where he was standing and gave him a front row seat to Gavin’s rape and torture. He brought a shaky hand to his earpiece and pressed the button, “Y-yeah, I found him. I- fuck, Geoff, this is… Oh my god…”

“What is it? Is he okay?”

“No. He is fucking not okay. Geoff, let me call you back.”

“Michael, wai-“ but he had cut off the connection, stuffing the earpiece into his hoodie pocket.

The slimes had Gavin practically hanging at the entrance of the hole where he was standing and he took a tentative step closer to them. Surprisingly, the slimes didn’t make a move towards him. It was almost unnerving to him that they didn’t.

Closer inspection of Gavin revealed that his chest was shaking unevenly, probably from repressed sobs going by the tears that steadily streamed down his face. The tentacles were doing quite a stimulating job on him and he had to have been exhausted which accounted for the loose way he hung against his bindings and took what they were giving.

The tentacle in his mouth pulled out suddenly and Gavin gasped, shuddering and whimpering before finally getting a word out; a familiar word, “M-M-Michael…?” The question hung in the air before the Jerseyite stepped forward.

“Gavin. Oh my god, Gavin, what the fuck did you get yourself into?”

A sob wracked the other man’s form, “I-ah… It was an a- _ah_ \- ac-c-cident…” the tentacles in his ass started to move faster against him and the one around his eyes slid away, revealing the red, puffy orbs they left behind full of so many emotions that Michael wasn’t sure he’d be able to write them all down. He writhed against them then, crying out, “ _Ah_! M-Michael, please! I c-can’t- _hah_! I can’t! It _hurts_! Please! Please! _Please_!”

Michael had never felt more helpless than at that moment He wanted to reach out and comfort his friend somehow but he was positive the last thing the other man wanted was something else touching him, “Jesus, Gav, I… What do you want me to do? I- fucking Christ…”

“End it! Please! Just… _end it_!” The cry was desperate and Michael understood the meaning behind it.

_Kill me! Please!_

He was shaking his head before he realized it, “I can’t, Gavin. I can’t do that.”

“Please! _Please_! I can’t take anymore! _Please_!” A violent sob wracked his form but his voice was resigned; he’d given up trying, “Please…”

Determined, Michael stepped forward to the very edge of the wall and reached a hand out to lightly touch his hanging friend’s side, “It’ll be okay, Gav. I’ll… I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”

Tired eyes found his own and Gavin’s lips moved to say Michael’s name but he was suddenly cut off as those eyes widened and he lurched forward, his face suddenly paling and his stomach muscles quivering like he was going to be sick, but when his mouth opened, instead of vomit like was expected, a single tentacle spilled out, wriggling within his mouth from the inside; the larger tentacle had found its way entirely through his digestive tract. His body kept reflexively trying to choke it up, but it wasn’t moving and Gavin’s face was turning redder by the second. He was choking.

“Jesus Christ, Gavin! Breathe through your nose! Oh my god!” Michael tried to coach as best he could, but this was something neither of them could have ever been prepared for, “Keep breathing, dammit!”

Gavin was sure he was going to finally pass out with the way his vision was getting dark around the edges and the pressure was building up in his head. He was going to die here, just like this. But as soon as he was welcoming the darkness, the tentacle receded back into his body and left him to throw up actual stomach fluids and let him gasp for the breath he had just lost.

He could hear Michael’s voice in his ears telling him to slow down before he hyperventilated but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Everything was too much. His body was oversensitive and abused and overused and he didn’t want to be in his skin anymore.

“Deeper breaths, goddammit! Come on, Gav, listen to me!”

The larger tentacle was on its way out of his body now, but somehow as it exited, he still felt full. Moreover, he didn’t like that feeling. It was like a phantom ache and he couldn’t shake it. The other tentacles removed themselves from his ass and his cock and the stimulation stopped altogether. The slimes were treating him gently now, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or unnerved by that fact.

Michael took a step back uneasily as the slimes started to move into the hole where he was, but they were pushing Gavin towards him and pressed the exhausted Brit against his hoodie, draping his arms over Michael’s shoulders as they let him go and receded back into their cavern, leaving them entirely alone.

The Jerseyite blinked at this behavior before looking down at Gavin’s trembling and panting form. The man couldn’t even stay upright and he started to slide down to the ground but Michael caught him before he could fall, “Can… Can you walk?” He asked tentatively.

The reply was weak and raspy, barely coherent, “C-c-can’t f-feel my l-l-l-legs.”

“Right.” Michael swallowed and straightened Gavin’s shirt before taking off his hoodie and wrapping it around the younger man’s shoulders and zipping it up. It was much longer and covered the Brit’s more delicate areas. Then without another word, he lifted his friend into his arms in a bridal carry and started the trek back to the surface through the tunnel.

He replaced his earpiece as well and pressed the button to reconnect with Achievement City, “Geoff, I’ve got him. We’re coming home.”

~~\-------------------------~~

Michael stepped out of Gavin’s house with a permanent scowl. The others sat on the ground waiting for him in the center of town, most of them with either a horrified, sick, or exhausted expression.

Geoff had his face in his hands, Jack and Ryan were anxiously waiting for someone to say something, and Ray was next to Geoff looking rather pale. They were going on 24 hours without sleep and it was starting to take its toll.

Michael joined them nonetheless, sitting down in their little makeshift circle, “He’s asleep now. Finally.”

Their leader ran his hands over his face and sighed, “Good. That’s good.”

“Yeah…”

More silence followed and it was deafening.

“I just…” Jack began, “I don’t understand why so many slimes were in one place.”

“None of us do.” Michael responded, “But there were so many of them…”

With his hands folded, Geoff looked ahead at nothing, “I want to know why they didn’t drag you into it too though. Why pass up that opportunity?”

The Jerseyite shrugged, “I don’t know that either. But I’m not going to say I wasn’t relieved.”

“I don’t blame you.” He fell back against the ground then, “Christ, why does this shit always happen to Gavin?”

“Maybe the slimes are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for.” Ryan spoke up suddenly, “Individually they are pretty weak and stupid but when they all come together like that…”

“Then they combine strength and intelligence?” Ray finished, “That… seems like it could happen. But it would make slimes much more dangerous now. If there’s more than one around us we’ll have to be careful of it.”

Michael nodded, “That still doesn’t explain why they were together in the first place and why they left me alone. If they are so smart together then why haven’t we found this monster before? Why don’t they stay together all the time?”

“Maybe…” Jack paused and bit his lip, “I’d hate to plant that seed in your minds but maybe… it was a spawning cave.”

“A what?” Ray asked.

“A spawning cave. Like with salmon. The fish travel upstream every year to the place they were born to… well to…”

“To multiply. Lay eggs. Procreate.” Geoff finished.

It was silent for a moment until Ray spoke up, “You’re not trying to say that they… are you?”

Jack looked apologetic, “It’s something we need to think about.”

“But there’d be no way to test it.” Ryan added, “If it is what happened then we’ll know within the next few days. He’ll either be dead or… or worse…”

“What’s worse than being dead?” Michael asked suddenly horrified.

“You ever had a baby, Michael?” Geoff bit out, “No? Well neither has Gavin. Imagine him having several at once.”

Michael shuddered. Things were not getting any better, “How would we… How would we even counteract that?”

“We wouldn’t.” Ryan plucked at the ground for a minute, “The only way to help would be to… let it run its course.”

“So basically what you’re saying is… Gavin walked into the wrong place at the wrong time and now he could be an incubator to a colony of slimes who just raped him?” Ray summed up.

“That’s one option. There are probably a lot of others that we haven’t thought of, but it would explain why they didn’t touch Michael.”

“What? How?” Michael tried to wrap his head around what the others were saying.

“With their combined intelligence they had to have known that Gavin wouldn’t have survived on his own once they were done with him. That would have put their eggs in danger. So they were expecting someone to find him and take care of him. Michael you showed up a crucial moment. They didn’t touch you because they considered you to be a caretaker to their incubator. At least that’s what makes sense to me.”

“I hope to god you’re wrong, Ryan. Oh my fucking god…”

“So… So what do we do?” Ray asked suddenly and everyone turned to look at Geoff.

Their leader sat up and rubbed the back of his head, “We let him sleep. Keep an eye on him. Other than that we still have things to do around here.” He looked to the two younger members of their group, “Ray, Michael, one of you is to be in the city at all times. No exceptions. If he so much as twitches in his sleep, I want to know about it.”

Ray and Michael both nodded.

“Ryan, Jack, you and I need to go get some more food for the stockpile. We’re running a bit low.”

The other two nodded as well and stood from their seated positions on the ground.

“Our best bet, I think, is to help him forget it ever happened. Don’t mention it at all and don’t make it obvious that we’re keeping him within radar.” Geoff stood then, “We just need to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. That’s all we can do.”

~~\------------------~~

It was three days later and in the middle of the night. Everyone was asleep and Gavin had woken up a total of one time during those three days to satiate a dry thirst that was making it hard for him to talk. He had coughed and spluttered at the warm but welcome liquid and when he rinsed out his mouth, a little bit of blood was found. He had frowned at that but otherwise went right back to sleep, dead to the world, not even a hint of nightmares in the heavy way he slept.

This night was different though. He woke to a pain in his stomach that caused him to curl up on his bed and grasp at the mattress. For a moment the pain was blinding but then it swiftly settled into a dull ache as he became more aware of where he was and what he was feeling. He felt sick suddenly and leaned over his bed to throw up into an empty pail that someone was kind enough to leave near him. He buried his face in his pillow then, trying to dispel the illusion of slimy tentacles prying him open and filling him. He didn’t want to remember but, god, he couldn’t stop the phantom feeling of burning and being stretched and opened. It felt like it was still happening that something was down there even though he knew that he was safe in his bed.

He could even feel the tickle of tentacles against his ass cheeks. He swallowed and, just to confirm, to prove to himself that he was fine, he reached a hand around to his entrance to feel it. At first he felt nothing but his own trembling skin but then something slick and wriggling and very much alive and sentient wrapped around his fingers and he screamed, falling out of his bed and landing on the ground. His pillow landed in his lap as he pushed his pants down to get a look at what he hoped wasn’t real. _No, no, no, this isn’t happening._

The darkness made it impossible to see anything and he couldn’t find it in himself to care when the others burst into his home to find him naked from the waist down and crying with his face in his hands.

“Gavin? What happened?” Geoff knelt down in front of him, “Was it a nightmare? You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

“N-no… G-Geoff…” Came the weak reply, muffled behind his hands, “Geoff there’s… s-something ins-s-side me…”

“There’s nothing inside you, buddy. That’s over with. It’s gone now.”

“No… You don’t… _ah_!” Another pain hit his stomach, worse than before and he curled into it, wrapping his arms around his stomach and holding his breath.

Ray and Michael stood behind Geoff with similar looks of concern, glancing at each other.

“It’s going to be okay, Gav. Just go back to sleep.” Geoff tried to move to help him up but Gavin pushed his hands away weakly.

“Geoff, just…” His face was heating up as the pain settled into that teasing ache, “Just… _look_ …”

Geoff’s face turned red too but he was the leader of the group and he was the one who had to deal with everything. He turned to Ray and Michael, “Do you have a torch handy?”

Ray pulled one out of his inventory and gave it to Geoff who planted it beside the Brit, letting the light wash over them. Biting his lip, the older man looked down to where his friend was having these feeling and nearly spit a boatful of curses at the sight. About an inch outside of the Brit’s asshole, three tentacles were writhing and pulling away from each other, spreading him open presumably for what they all feared.

“Shit, Gavin. This fucking shit always happens to you.” Geoff shoved his arms under Gavin’s knees and back and lifted him easily, placing him back into the bed.

“Geoff?” Ray’s worried voice came from behind him.

“He’s been incubated. “ Geoff replied, “Go get water and blankets. Lots of both. Move.”

They only hesitated for a second before running off to grab the supplies.

“Geoff, what’s… what’s h-happening?” Gavin asked meekly, not understanding.

“We had a discussion about this earlier, Gavin. We think the slimes were… spawning. They put their eggs inside you to keep them warm and… well you’re laying them now.”

The Brit squawked in disbelief but another stabbing pain turned it into a cry of agony and his head fell back and hit the wall.

“It’s… It’ll be okay, Gav. We’re here for you.”

“No, no, no, I can’t be… This isn’t… _hah_ … I don’t…”

“Shh… It’s gonna be alright. You’ll be fine.” Geoff’s parental mode kicked in swiftly and he pushed his friend’s slowly dampening hair from his face, “We’ll take care of you.”

“Geoff, I don’t… I don’t want to…”

“None of this is voluntary, Gavin…”

Tears were starting to well up in the Brit’s eyes and he looked away, “I’m not a _fem_ , dammit!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Those pains were coming closer together until he was writhing in constant and consistent agony, grabbing the bed sheets in his fists. When Michael and Ray returned with what was needed, Geoff had them situated on either side of the Brit to help him through it.

They weren’t really sure how to be comforting at first but Gavin didn’t care. He grabbed for their hands and squeezed until their fingers were purple and he was crying these heart wrenching sobs.

~~\-----------------------~~

After nearly 17 hours, the screams and cries calmed down and Geoff, Ray and Michael finally emerged looking pale and ashen. Ryan and Jack went to meet them.

The three of them were each holding a pale full of gray-colored balls that were about the size of pool balls and just as round and smooth.

“Are those…? Is that all of them?” Ryan asked, unable to hide the slight curiosity.

“There’s five more buckets inside.” Geoff said, his voice slightly strained and tired.

“How many?”

“253.”

“That’s nearly one egg every four minutes…”

“Jesus!” Jack exclaimed, “How did all of them fit inside him?”

“These have grown. From the looks of it they start off small where they’re planted and grow little by little the closer they get to being laid.” Geoff rubbed a free hand over his face, “Don’t go in there. He kicked us out.”

Ryan pursed his lips together, “I know we give him a lot of shit but this is the last thing he deserved. Honestly.”

“There’s nothing we can do. It’s over now. He’s fine.”

Everyone was silent for a moment until Ray spoke up with a question, “What are we going to do with them?”

Geoff scratched his scruff, “I guess… we’ll take them to Gavin’s tunnel and leave them there.”

“You don’t want to destroy them?” Jack asked, slightly surprised.

The leader’s gaze turned to Michael who was looking down and scowling at the ground, “Michael and I already had this discussion. The last thing we need is an angry tentacle monster coming into town because we killed its babies.”

“Oh. Right.”

Geoff handed his pale to Ryan, “I’ll got get the other buckets and we’ll carry them over there. Ray, you’re staying here. We need Michael to show us the way to the tunnel.”

Ray nodded and handed Jack his bucket before going to sit against the wall of Gavin’s house.

“Alright. We’re leaving in ten minutes. Let’s get ready.”

~~\---------------------~~

It had taken almost a year but Gavin was back to his normal, destructive self. The others still wouldn’t let him go anywhere alone but it hardly mattered. The Brit enjoyed the company and the safety it brought. He had made a full recovery and went to work immediately trying to repress the memories and it worked for the most part. He only ever remembered in dreams anymore and nobody brought it up. Even his nightmares were quiet.

His only real traumatic experience happened when he and Ray were mining in a tunnel and came across a small cavern with a slime in the corner. They had placed the torches to light up the cavern and revealed the wiggling, green form and Gavin had jumped back with a screech, falling into the fetal position, whimpering and trembling. Ray was quick to kill it and decided then that they were done with mining that day.

The others were getting along too. Everyone was happy, healthy, and normal.

So it was a terrible surprise when Michael suddenly was jolted awake by the sound of Gavin’s screaming in the middle of the night. When he rushed outside and saw that the others were watching with the same horrified expression. Thousands of slimes had planted themselves in the center of town, their tentacles reaching into Gavin’s house through his windows and he didn’t need to crane his neck to know what they were doing. They should have seen this coming.

The rage inside Michael boiled at that point though and he reached for his sword by his door and moved to charge at the slimes, “FUCKING LET HIM GO!”

“MICHAEL, NO!” Geoff’s voice rang out from across the center of town. He had obviously seen what Michael was doing, “JACK!”

Jack suddenly tackled Michael and pinned him to the ground before he could make it to the sea of writhing green.

“What the fuck, Jack! Get off me!”

“You can’t just attack the thing, Michael! Gavin isn’t screaming anymore. It’s already inside him. You’ll just piss it off and it might hurt him.”

The younger man growled and shoved Jack off of him, “This is bullshit! We just fixed him! He was fine! They just ruined all of that progress!”

“I know, Michael. None of us are happy about it.” He grabbed, Michael’s arm and dragged him over to where the others were sitting in front of Ryan’s house, waiting for the slimes to be done so they could console their walking disaster magnet.

Once again, the tentacles stayed away from them but a few of them eyed Ray curiously and the Puerto Rican uneasily shifted so that he was behind both Geoff and Jack and away from the view of the monster.

“We should have seen this coming…” Ryan said quietly, “Spawning is a yearly event. We should have known they’d come looking for him.”

“No shit.” Michael muttered.

“So this is going to happen every year…” Ray sighed, plucking grass from the ground, “What happens if something happens to Gav?”

“I don’t know, Ray. They seem to be taking careful stock of you.” Geoff said half-heartedly.

“Don’t joke.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well what are we going to do?” Jack asked, “We can’t just keep letting this happen.”

“No we can’t.” Geoff agreed and pursed his lips, his eyes falling to the ground in thought, “We can’t do anything this year but…”

“But what?” Michael prompted.

Geoff only kept looking at the logo in the center of the Achievement City and eventually everyone’s eyes followed. Finally they all looked at each other and the silent communication was understood. Next year would be different.

~~\-----------------~~

It was a year later and Gavin couldn’t sleep. Sleeping was just too uneasy for him anymore, especially this time of year. Every sound put him on high alert and he couldn’t stand it. He was so tired but he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t even want to close his eyes for a second.

A shadow passed outside and he tensed, blinking. Maybe it was nothing? A tapping at his window and a slide suggested otherwise and more shadows joined in, making his heart jump into his throat. This was what they had prepared everything for. It was now or never. He had to move.

He grabbed his earpiece from on top of his items chest and ran into the safety of his trophy room just as the sound of shattering glass filled his ears. Behind his two towers was nothing but stone to the untrained eye, but he punched out two blocks to reveal a hidden passage before turning back around and placing them behind him, covering his back so that they couldn’t find their way into his tunnel. He placed his earpiece into his ear, his heart thrumming, and pressed the button, “Guys! Guys, they’re here!”

Michael was the first to respond, “I’ll meet you at Jack’s house.”

Gavin nodded to himself before following the tunnel further beneath the city. It connected with another tunnel that was under Michael’s house which connected to yet another tunnel beneath Jack’s where both men were waiting for him. There was angry rustling above them and as Gavin stopped to catch his breath, Michael placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“I thought for sure you were going to freeze up and blow the whole plan. Good job.”

“I-… Thanks… Where’s Geoff?”

“With Ray and Ryan. They’re ready to push the button as soon as we’re clear. But we have to keep moving.” Jack stated, running ahead and beckoning them to follow.

The tunnel kept going, eventually running into another tunnel before stopping abruptly at a ladder that lead up. Jack went first, then Gavin, then Michael and they found themselves within the reading room.

Michael pressed his earpiece, “We’re good. Hit it.” He moved to look out the window and saw Geoff, Ryan, and Ray standing by a button near the walkway into Achievement City. This was a lot of work they were destroying but they were killing something in the process. It evened out.

Suddenly the three men were running into the cactus farm to watch and that’s when the fireworks started. The whole logo beneath Achievement City erupted in brilliant white light and swallowed the gelatinous slime with the explosion. When the light dissipated, there were quite a few stragglers which Ray, Ryan, and Geoff went to take care of. Most of the rest of the slimes had been incinerated before they could multiply. The crater they could live with. Everything in the city was fixable, but their friend was not.

He turned away from the window, “It worked, Gav. You’re safe now.”

The relief that flooded into the Brit was so potent that he collapsed under the weight if it, “Thank Christ.”

Michael punched his arm lightly, “Let’s work on getting over all this for real.”

Gavin nodded, “Yeah. Yes please.”


End file.
